When I was in college, the "fast food" joint (DKs) on campus carried muffins in the morning. Starting as a first year, I discovered a muffin with some sort of red berry that was simply heavenly. I couldn't figure out what the red berry was, but was always thrilled when I found the red berry muffins. DKs did not often carry the red berry muffins, I discovered when I began to get a daily muffin senior year. As a senior, I still didn't know what the berry was.
Nor did anyone else I bothered to ask.
I didn't figure it out till my last semester. I was sitting in the coffee joint (Java Joint), eating my muffin and drinking my tea between my morning classes when I realized what the berry was: raspberry.
And boy did I feel stupid.
The reason I liked the muffins was that they were sweet and tart, reminding me of rhubarb. But there was a bite missing that rhubarb has, so I knew it wasn’t rhubarb. It wasn’t a strawberry, because it wasn’t sweet enough. It was in between. I don’t remember how I realized it was a raspberry, as it honestly looked like a muffin with some red goop. It had no discernible characteristics other than it was red, sweet and tart, and fruit-like.
But, that day in the Java Joint, I realized it was a raspberry. Or it was in a former life before it’d come in contact with whoever baked the muffins for Beloit College.
Fast forward ten years, and I’m scrolling through Pinterest looking for “healthy” breakfast muffins to bake next week to take to someone who just had a baby. I was getting frustrated because all the “breastfeeding” muffins have all sort of “healthy” things you cannot find in the middle of nowhere. (Or I don’t want to buy it because it costs 12 dollars for a tiny bag and I’ll use it this once and I don’t even know if she’s breastfeeding because I haven’t spoken or seen her since before she had the baby and also I still live in the middle of nowhere.)
ANYWAY
So, I gave up on the whole breastfeeding muffins and looked at what foods breastfeeding mothers should be eating. (You’d think I’d remember as I was at one point a breastfeeding mother, but I didn’t actually pay any attention till my milk dried up and I was pumping an ounce a day and freaking out and that was when I learned about low flow and suddenly everything made sense and I gave up.)
ANYWAY
The point of this post: I found raspberry muffins. I know I’ve looked them up before, fondly thinking of those muffins I stuffed in my gob throughout college, but I’ve yet to actually try any of the recipes I’ve pinned. Since I had a lemon, when we went to the store, I bought some raspberries (and blueberries. Those were in the breastfeeding muffins someone brought me shortly after EMO was born) and greek yogurt, as I used most of ours last week making the fail at life greek yogurt brownies no one can stand. (Proof: it’s been four days and they are still in the tin and I’ve only had one, Pilot Boy two.) I’ve not had much success when baking with greek yogurt. (The Cake Cookies and the failure at life brownies.) I was a bit iffy to try these, but figured this time it’d go better as there was more liquid than the failure at life brownies.
They turned out pretty good, though they did remind me why I usually do not bake with berries: melting berries went everywhere. And folding the berries into the batter in a uniform manner was hopeless due to the fact it was so thick, but unlike the Cake Cookies, the thick better made a pretty good muffin. Also, while it seems strange to zest a whole lemon (to me), the lemon flavor isn’t really all that strong. Next time (when I make them for myself), I might zest another whole lemon in there.
Without further ado: the recipe.
Adapted from here.
Raspberry-Blueberry-Lemon Breakfast (or Anytime Really) Muffins
Ingredients
1 lemon (seriously, you’ll need the whole lemon or another if you really want a lemony flavor)
1/2 cup sugar (white, unless you really want to use something else, but I used white)
1 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt
1/3 cup oil (I used veggie, but I’d think any cooking oil would do)
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour (I would have loved to use white whole-wheat, but tragically, had none so I used all purpose plain flour)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh raspberries
1 cup fresh blueberries
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Peel the skin off the lemon. You want to peel, so it doesn’t have to be pretty. As once you’re done getting the rind off, you’re going to put it in the food processor (or blender) and chop it up into tiny bits. Do not zest, as you want more flavor, so peel that lemon rind off the lemon. (With a veggie peeler, not your fingers.)
3. Put the peel and sugar into a food processor (or blender) and pulse (seriously, pulse, do not blend) until lemon peel is tiny and combined with the sugar. (This will smell awesome. Take a moment and sniff.)
4. Add the yogurt, oil, egg, and vanilla. Once again, pulse, do not blend, until combined. (This will also smell really good. A different kind of good, but still worth a good whiff.)
5. In a big mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add the wet to this and fold together with a wooden spoon, plastic spatula, or something that is not a motorized mixer.
6. Once batter is almost combined, add berries and continue folding until there’s no more loose flour. Batter will be super thick.
7. Get out your muffin tins.
8. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray, grease with butter then sprinkle with flour, or line with muffin cups. Just do something so the batter does not stick to the tin.
9. Using a spoon, divide the batter among the cups. Fill the cups as full as you can get them, as the batter will rise only a little. (I got a total of 18 muffins out of my batter, filling the cups full.)
10. Bake until edges are golden brown, which will occur around the 18 minute mark. Do not bake for longer than 25 minutes. (Mine finished before the 18 minute mark, but since my oven is usually slow, I set the timer for 20 minutes. Luckily, I checked them shortly after the 18 minute mark, as if I'd left them in there for 20, they'd've burned.)
11. Remove muffins from oven and cool for five minutes before transferring to wire racks.
12. Enjoy warm. (Not hot, as the berries will burn your tongue.)
No comments:
Post a Comment